Orchestrate Lively Review Sessions with Flippity

Wouldn’t it be terrific if you reinforce learning by involving students in the study material creation process as well as the active review participants? Now you can with the free Flippity.net Quiz Show.

The fastest way to understand how this tool works is to view the demo at Flippity.net then duplicate the Google spreadsheet template supplied to use as a basis for your own interactive classroom activity or study guide. While you’re at flippity check out their other creative teaching tools: online flashcards, random name picker, badge award tracker, progress indicator, and quiz certificate.

By the way, did you catch that all of these student engagement and study devices are free! The following information in this post provides inspirational strategies I’ve used that may increase the educational value in your classes.

Get students involved in the creation process

The initial inclination when looking at the template is,“What questions should I choose?” It certainly is feasible for instructors build the back-end themselves, but let’s ditch the linear thinking and have the students develop the game board.

During class: Use 5-10 minutes to play the Flippity Quiz Show demo with your students

Be sure to show “The Simpsons for $400” and “Potpourri for $100” sample questions. Illustrate how points are earned (and lost). Inform students that they will be collaborating to create a review/study board.

Your homework: Copy the template and prepare sheets for distribution

Rename your spreadsheet. (e.g. “Mid-term review math-201 AM class.”)

Determine and name your 6 (or fewer) categories.

Remove most of the pre-filled Q&As. Leave placeholder samples for students in the first column. Include text, video, and image prompts for inspiration and coding guidance.

Copy your quiz master sheet

Delete all columns except your sample column and one Category columns unless you want them to have the opportunity to write questions for more than one category. In my experience, having student groups build-out one category by writing 5 progressively challenging questions produces better results than giving them access to the entire 30-slot board. It’s also easier for the instructor to copy/paste whole columns into your master spreadsheet for the final quiz board.

Make a copy of the sheet for each group and edit the Category headings. Stress the importance of making challenging questions to increase the intensity of the game and as a richer study tool.

Play the game

In class you can may choose to keep the work groups together for team-building or, my preference is to mix them up so there’s someone from each team to act as a category expert. If you do this activity more than once everyone learns that they may need to be a category expert–upping the engagement stakes with their peers. Remember the goal of this exercise is review and reinforced learning–the more students get that the correct answer on tough questions the better the exam scores are likely to be.

You may want to provide the quiz link to the students for self-paced review. The interactive format encourages them to “play” until they get all 30 questions correct.

One activity, multiple assessment points

Now that you understand the activity let’s explore the learning value-add opportunities.

Collaborative work – check

Homework grade – check

Student engagement – check

Content competency – check

Study guide that students will use – check

Reuse and recycle your digital artifacts

Still not sold on this idea?

Think about the long-term benefits of building a repository of Google Sheets that you can reuseevery semester to review not 6 categories worth of topics, but 12 or 18? Consider having students in one section of your course design the the game board for a different section so no one in the classroom has prior knowledge of the questions. Note: Because students will have retain access to the category Q&As the contribute watch for duplication in future session because students like to share, too. There’s no need to give future students the opportunity to “game” the activity.

Welcome to Forward Thinking

A blog where the Center for Creative Instruction & Technology gets together with the faculty of Delaware Technical Community College and the education community at large to start conversations about best practices in teaching and learning.

Follow Forward Thinking by Email

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.